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ARVO in Baltimore

This year’s ARVO meeting took me back to sunny Baltimore. My last visit to the city was 10 years ago when I spent a month at Wilmer for an Ophthalmology rotation that left me with memories of Subway sandwiches, sketchy neighborhoods, and unsatisfying blue crabs. I departed last Friday on a red-eye after dropping Melody off for her 7am flight and blasting through afternoon clinic, leaving me exhausted by the time I arrived. Rather than taking a nap as I should have, I decided to get breakfast with my roommate in nearby Lexington Market for chicken & waffles, which provided a rather authentic Baltimore experience, but was no match for Dame’s. We returned to our hotel for a 6-hour-long Allergan meeting before I took a breather over small plates at Salt Tavern with some Duke friends. I presented my poster on Sunday, but overall felt that the meeting was less satisfying than previous years perhaps due to the meeting location and lower turnout. I also caught up with friends from residency, and ended the evening at Cinghiale for a delicious 4-course prezzo fisso, and nearly 3 hours of waxing philosophical with colleagues over our careers as clinician-scientists. On Monday, I spent the morning interviewing a post-doc candidate, interfacing with industry leadership, and lunching with an old lab mate over harborside crab cakes, then hosted an inaugural networking dinner with sponsorship from Alcon for clinician-scientists in Ophthalmology. Continuing our prior night’s dinner topic, we had 30 participants from different career stages share their advice for succeeding in an academic career combining research with clinical practice. Afterwards, I hung out with some students until the wee hours that night. Despite a late start next morning, I joined the CAOS folks for a crab feast luncheon at Bo Brooks before my flight home. I made use of my Priority Pass again at BWI, and was glad to see my new Sapphire Reserve really starting to pay for itself. With all my upcoming travel, I’m hoping to get more use out of it this summer.